Getting To Cairns

So finally after 5 – 6 months working we are officially back travelling.  We have now been travelling for just over a week and in the first week we have been so busy we just have not found the time to be able to write any blogs. We apologise for this and would like to warn you that there may be a few blogs all coming in a couple of days. This is for several reasons, firstly as we have done so much it would take us forever to write what we have been doing and secondly and most importantly we don’t want to bore you guys to death.


Having decided that we want to travel around Australia in the cheapest possible way we decided to rent our self a Jucy Campervan, which Amber has called Shrek.

Our Journey around Australia will officially start in Cairns. We will then head down the east coast (missing Sydney) to Melbourne. Then we are aiming to go inland and visit Adelaide before venturing into the desert to visit Uluru and Kings Canyon. Once finished in central Oz we will then be ending our journey in Sydney before flying to New Zealand. As we have been working in Brisbane, for the first part of our journey we decided to get to northern Queensland as quickly as possible. 

We picked up our Jucy Campervan and had planned to stay the night in a National Park called Bunya Mountains. Having done some research we planned to stay here and give the campervan its first little test to make sure everything worked ok. Bunya Mountains is about a 3 hour drive (200km) North West of Brisbane. Things took a little longer than planned picking up the campervan so we bundled everything into the back of the van with a blue skied Brisbane and head towards the mountains with intentions of sorting things out once we arrived.

On arrival at Bunya the weather was awful with thick fog and pouring with rain. We tried to sort things out as best we could just so we could get out of the rain and get some sleep. Waking up on Sunday taught us that the fog had not lifted and the rain had not stopped all night. We soon realised that we had accumulated too much rubbish over the 6 months working and a massive clear out was in order. We got rid of clothes, camping equipment, plastic boxes and shoes. Amber is still trying to convince me that getting rid of a pair of heels (even though we’re camping) is a massive sacrifice and I should be grateful. After a couple of hours things were sorted and we were back on the road. With smiles back on our faces we left the mountain, or at least we tried to leave. We found that in the previous night’s storm that the biggest tree had fallen totally blocking the road off the mountain. We ended up having to make a 90 minute diversion.

We had planned on staying at a little village called Dululu. However having driven over 600km, thanks to the detour due to the falling tree it became apparent that this was not going to happen and with the sun setting we searched for a caravan park. An hour later we were in the caravan park planning the following day. We had discovered that working our way up inland Queensland (as scenic as it was) was no good as we were finding ourselves miles from anywhere, with no phone signal. It was for this reason that we decided for the rest of our journey up to Cairns that we would take the coastal roads. This truly was our first lesson at just how big and vast this country is.

A long road to somewhere?

Rising early for another long day of driving we were shocked to find that the fog was obviously following us, as the clear sky the night before had disappeared. Luckily it didn’t last for long. Our destination was the seaside town of Bowen. Arriving before the sun set we decided to take a small drive to Grays Bay, where we were treated to one of the most spectacular sunsets we have both ever seen. ON the way back to the caravan park we were shocked to see a 'Moon Rise' over a local bay. Both events were truly spectacular.

Moon Rise

Tuesday saw the final leg of what seemed an epic journey. Today however we were to drive through some of the most spectacular National Parks. We found a lovely bay to have some lunch and then continued towards Cairns. It was on this leg of the journey that we decided that we were going to push the boat out in Cairns and book ourselves a Skydive. Needless to say that we didn’t tell our parents this was coming up. We arrived in Cairns around 4.30pm and having sat in the campervan for what seemed all week we went for a stroll along the beach and got some dinner.